One of the biggest United Nations controversies back when granddad was a lad was whether "Trick or Treat for UNICEF" uses kids to raise money to kill kids, i.e., to fund abortions.
The long-running debate has been polarizing, to the point that some people terrorized kids who simply were out on Halloween trying to do a good deed, filling charity coffers with coin instead of their bellies with candy.
The annual collection, which has raised about a bazillion dollars — well, about $120 million for sure — since a few Philadelphia children started it in 1950, probably will continue to spur debate long after granddad is flower fertilizer.
But I recently ran across another U.N. trick that's no trick, in my book. It’s such a head-shaker that it should spark plenty of debate.
If you haven’t heard about it already, you’d better sit down, kids, because it defies commons sense and, some might argue, decency as well.
It seems that the U.N.’s Economic, Social and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) doubts the effectiveness of sex ed centered around traditional family values, so it issued a report suggesting its own timeline and topics such education should cover.
Starting with masturbation. For 5-year-olds. Nope, that’s not a typo that should be 15 instead. A U.N. agency believes that 5-year-olds ought to learn to masturbate. No WONDER the full organization has trouble persuading countries to play nice with each other, when it’s so lame-brained as wanting kids to play nasty.
OK, perhaps that’s too hyperbolic, as if I’m hell-bent on being inflammatory, just to get your attention. Well, to be fair, then, I’ll nuance it: The report doesn’t out-and-out tell kindergartners about a fun new activity for recess.
Rather, the International Guidelines on Sexuality Education stipulate “age-appropriate” information. UNESCO cobbled together the guidelines with the U.N. Population Fund, an organization that CNSNews.com reported works for universal access to “reproductive health care.”
The report’s rationale for creating the guidelines is that it is “essential to recognize the need and entitlement of all young people to sexuality education.” An appendix backs that claim by pointing to a 2008 report from the International Planned Parenthood Federation that argued governments “are obligated to guarantee sexual rights,” and that “sexuality education is an integral component to human rights.”
The so-called “age-appropriate” guidelines break down the suggested curriculum into four age groups: 5- to 8-year-olds, 9- to 12-year-olds, 12- to 15-year-olds and 15- to 18-year-olds.
The curriculum for the 5- to 8-year-olds, a group I’m interested in because I’ve got two grandsons in that range, includes the following teaching moments, CNSNews reported:
* “Touching and rubbing one’s genitals is called masturbation.”
* “Girls and boys have private body parts that can feel pleasurable when touched by oneself.”
* “People receive messages about sex, gender, and sexuality from their cultures and religions.”
* “All people regardless of their health status, religion, origin, race or sexual status can raise a child and give it the love it deserves.”
* “Gender inequality,” “examples of gender stereotypes,” and “gender-based violence.”
* Description of fertilization, conception, pregnancy, and delivery.
I suppose one could argue the merits of the last four topics, although I would take the side arguing against the very idea that a 5-year-old needs to know about such things at this point in his life.
But my mind was too boggled about the first two topics to formulate the argument. I’m all for good-touch, bad-touch tutorials to warn kids not to fall victim to lechers, but this step is a little TMI at this point in their lives.
I judge age-appropriateness by what the grandkids are interested in.
All indications are that, at this juncture in their young lives, they are interested in playing with their Legos, which leads me to conclude that should be their focus, rather than what they can do with what’s between their legs. They are fixated, as they should be, on SpongeBob SquarePants rather than what’s in their own pants.
Problem is — and I’m amazed that the clowns who wrote the report don’t KNOW this — is that, if you tell kids about something, they want to experiment. In this case, one thing would lead to another and all of a sudden, a 5-year-old is involved in something that used to ensnare only pre-pubescents.
No thank you. Sooooooooo, when 5-year-old Jack, and often, 3-year-old Luke, ask me to help them put together Legos figures, that’s what we’ll do: Play with Legos (and make sure they pick them all up so I don’t step on them in my bare feet.
Call me Priscilla, but I think that’s the age-appropriate venture instead of, say, getting a naked Ken doll and showing them Ken’s pleasure palace.
Of course, it’s not my responsibility to give them “The Talk” anyway, so I’ll let their parents decide when to tell them what. I suspect that, knowing Melissa and Skip, it will be awhile before they go down that road.
There are plenty of age-appropriate “pleasures,” such as arts and crafts, fishing, camping, T-ball, soccer, etc., now without getting into sex ed.
Meanwhile, we’ll just be putting together Lego cities and cars and contraptions.
Maybe someday, we'll be goofy goobers and make videos like some people do.
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